


don't tell me how it's going down

by crookedsaint



Series: tumblr minific prompts [2]
Category: Blaseball (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, M/M, Prompt Fill, T for swears, derrick krueger (is a little messed up about it), mike townsend (chooses his words poorly)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-08
Updated: 2020-12-08
Packaged: 2021-03-10 00:40:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,087
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27955541
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crookedsaint/pseuds/crookedsaint
Summary: Mike forgets, sometimes, that his apartment isn't just haunted by Derrick Krueger, ghost of the guy he had a fling with back when incineration was still a rarity. That it's also haunted by Derrick Krueger, ghost of Jaylen's replacement. Most of the time, forgetting just means a few acidic words, some tired laughter, rolling over and going back to bed.Other times, it goes like this.
Relationships: Mike Townsend/Derrick Krueger
Series: tumblr minific prompts [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2090748
Kudos: 20





	don't tell me how it's going down

**Author's Note:**

> thanks to zo for sending me the prompts "things you said when we were on top of the world" & "things you said that made me feel like shit!" hope you appreciate me jamming them into one fic! it's also based heavily around @baliset's "your sinking ship (is big enough for two)" so check that out first if you haven't already
> 
> title is from feed your horses by thank you scientist! however, maybe don't listen to that one during this fic
> 
> enjoy!

“We found a way.”

“What?”

“We found a way to get her _back_.”

If Derrick had had a beating heart, it would have stopped. “You mean Jaylen?”

“Who else?” Mike shut the door, the motion sharp and giddy. Derrick stepped aside, more out of respect than necessity, staring at him. “There’s this blessing—”

“Isn’t there always—”

“It’s called Lottery Pick.” Mike was pacing now, running his hands through his curls over and over. Counter to end table and back again. “Steal the Fourteenth Most Idolized Player in the League,” he said, capitals clean and clear. “We’ve got a chance. A tiny, tiny chance. But the other teams agreed to let us get her—she was the first one gone, and so they’re—we can get her back, Derrick!”

Something heavy settled in his chest. It was familiar: an aching, itching sense of _certainty_ of his place in the world—certainty, too, of exactly who he took it from, and who would take it from him. And yet, even as the radio static started its tell-tale buzz in his ears, there Mike was. Grinning. His fingers drumming at empty air. His eyes (his _eyes_ ) shining with a terrible sort of anticipation. 

Derrick could almost pretend to be proud. Could almost twist his face into an approximation, play at the kinds of emotion-made-physical you lose the moment you go up in smoke. He almost wrapped Mike in a hug, pressed him close to his chest, celebrated the impending reunion with warmth and—

Almost.

“Oh, shit. Oh, shit, no, man, I didn’t mean—”

Derrick sighed.

“I didn’t mean it like that.” Mike backed up, and that hurt worse. He propped himself up on the back of the couch, burying his head in his hands. “Shit.”

“You were excited.”

“I was stupid.”

“You can be both.” Derrick let himself drift to Mike’s side, estimating what sitting on the couch’s low back would look like, might feel like. “There’s gotta be a catch.”

“Mmph?”

“No reason for the other teams not to try to get their star players back unless they think there’s a risk. Otherwise, they’d all be going for it.”

Mike’s laugh, piercing in the fuzzy quiet. “Is it too much for you to believe in human kindness?”

“If this is about kindness, you wouldn’t be bringing Jaylen back.” It wasn’t a pretty thing to say, but they’d crossed that line already. “It’s not like she’s asked for it. She’s just down there, pitching games, living the exact same life as before. Not like she’s making an effort.”

“An effort,” Mike repeated, voice laden with doubt. “Because it’s a matter of willpower to come back as a vengeful ghost?”

“Yeah, actually,” Derrick said, letting his voice break a little. If Mike’s face fell, it wasn’t like he didn’t deserve a little guilt. “It is. For those of us who don’t have anyone remembering us? Writing songs about us, putting up fucking shrines in our honor?” He exhaled a breath he didn’t need. “Have you seriously never wondered why I don’t talk to the band?”

“You talk to me.”

“You don’t count and you _know_ that.”

What Derrick meant was: _they_ don’t count _you_. You’re not like them. You’re not in the band, because you love her. What Derrick meant was: you don’t deify her. You don’t put her on a pedestal. You don’t reduce her to a line in a song, because you love her. What Derrick meant was: you told me about the after-school games you played together in high school, and I envied every moment that I got to share with you and her memory together in a room. You played me something you wrote in college on her shitty loft bed about how she never paid you gas money, and I devoured every measure, scribbled score for a solo in a notebook that didn’t exist. You talk about her in the kitchen, you talk around her in the living room, you talk to her in the van, in the shower, in your sleep—because you love her.

Mike stared through him. “Gee, you don’t have to—”

“I’m sorry.” It comes spilling out of his mouth, at once an apology and a confession. “Sorry. We’re both so bad at this. I’m sorry.”

“No, wait, you’re right.”

“What.”

“You’re right,” Mike said, resuming his pacing. More frantic this time. More desperate. “There’s no way the Houston Spies would just tell us this if there wasn’t something bigger at stake. If they didn’t know something we don’t.”

“And?” Derrick knew this look. Mike was thinking more than he could say out loud, his mouth tripping over itself while his brain worked at breakneck speeds. Normally, it ended in a song, a recipe, a brilliantly stupid idea.

“There’s a price. It’s going to be me.”

So the last one. “No it isn’t.” He stared, hands useless, as Mike’s face grew more and more horrifyingly certain. “It isn’t, Mike, you’re not going anywhere.”

“I’m sorry. I know what it’s like to feel like a second choice.” He paused a few inches away from Derrick: too close to be casual, too far to be intimate. “I promise I didn’t want to make you feel like that. I don’t know how to make you not feel like that.”

“You don’t understand,” Derrick said. “You’re not—they don’t get to do this to you! I’m not letting you play their stupid game. Not this time.”

Something fractured in Mike’s expression. His hand ghosted over Derrick’s upper arm, the gesture a soft tickle that should have been a firm squeeze. “Come on,” he said. “You know this isn’t just a game anymore, man.”

“Never was,” he conceded. After all, it’s not like anything had ever stopped Mike Townsend before. What was the use of taking this from him, anyway? What was the point of putting another weight on his shoulders? Of stopping him from finally, finally shrugging off the heaviest one? Instead of protesting, Derrick held out his arms and let Mike step those few inches closer, surrounding him in the sigh and hiss of haunted air. An embrace. 

A pale imitation.

“We really are bad at this. Why do you put up with me?”

“‘Cause you’re easy,” Derrick said, and what he meant was: because you love her, and still you make room for me.

Mike laughed. “As much as I’d like to stay and try to figure out how to kiss a ghost goodbye,” he said, “I think I’ve got something I gotta do.”


End file.
